Adil Lateef
Srinagar, Mar 27: To specialize Jammu and Kashmir Police in every filed including in anti-terror operations, the Valley’s lone Commando Training Centre (CTC) of Jammu and Kashmir Police is being upgraded to premier Counter-Insurgency and Anti-Terrorism (CIAT) School in Lethpora area of Awantipora in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district.
Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Trainings, Naveen Agarwal, said police was being readied to deal with every kind of situation and the CTC is being upgraded with the similar aim. “We are trying to ready police to deal with every kind of situation…we are upgrading this CTC to premier Counter-Insurgency and Anti-Terrorism (CIAT) School,” said ADGP Agarwal.
“Not only militancy, but police have also to deal with law and order situations where there are huge number of crowd. Police are to be trained how to disperse these crowds after pacifying them peacefully and also how to avoid collateral damage during anti-militancy operations. So police are in need of all these definements so that law abiding citizens don’t face any inconvenience and only criminals are targeted,” the ADGP said.
A top police official said Government of India approved the up-gradation of the CTC to CIAT in 2014 and now the infrastructure of the School would be upgraded. He said the commandos would be given hardcore training including in firing and house-intercepts. “The training would be almost par with National Security Guards (NSGs) and there would be different courses,” he said. This CIAT would be the first of its kind of anti-terror training school in Kashmir valley.
Principal of the CTC, Mehmood Chowdhary, said they have already trained 200 commandos in two-three counter-insurgency courses and these trainees are now posted at four different places across Jammu and Kashmir. “They were brought into service recently when an encounter raged at Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI) Pampore,” he said, adding that the CTC would be now called as CIAT.
He said the State’s dependency on other armed forces would minimize as the CIAT trainees would be fully capable of dealing with the anti-terror operations. “Police would be able to handle all situations without any support of other security forces,” he said. The Principal of the CTC further said the infrastructure and equipments needed for the CIAT would be established after they receive funds from the State Government.
“We have already done the fund projection through Home Department and we are hopeful of receiving the funds in shortest possible time,” he said. In reply to a question, he said that the trainees would not only be trained for counter-insurgency operations but for also to deal with the natural calamities like flood and earthquakes.
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